Overwhelming majority of Libertarians reject revenue-neutral tax proposals in poll

Only 7% support “Fair Tax” proposal

In response to the poll question posted at the LP.org web site on March 14, 2013 which asks, “Is there any circumstance where proposing a new tax is justified?” 81 percent of those who rendered an opinion (excluding those who selected “I have a different view”) reject revenue-neutral tax proposals and insist that total tax revenue must always go down. They chose one of the options stating, “We should NEVER help to raise or create a new tax,” or the option, “Only if it’s to trade one tax for another, such as the income tax for a sales tax, but only if total taxes go down.”

A 62 percent majority said there is never a reason to raise a tax, under any circumstance, including in a trade for relaxing marijuana prohibition. Half of this group asserts that taxes are at least 90 percent higher than they should be.

Only 7 percent of respondents selected the option for a tax exchange, the essence of the so-called “Fair Tax,” which proposes to substitute the federal income tax with a national sales tax and which gives the federal government the same level of tax revenue.

One voter had this to say about the poll:

“There were several options, but none of them represented the libertarian position, namely that taxation is theft and that no tax is ever justified at any time for any reason because it’s money taken by force. So I had to choose the last option, ‘I have a different view.’

“For heaven’s sake, how low has the LP sunk? What good does it do to even have such a poll put out by the LP where the LP’s longstanding position on the matter is not even an option?”

Poll results as of 3:00 p.m. on April 10, 2013, in response to the question, “Is there any circumstance when proposing a new tax is justified?”